[STAFF POWER ABUSE] This is embarrassing, multiple staff abusing this rule for there own benefit.

If sharing Playerauctions accounts is now a thing, does this mean @Chicks 8000+ vouches aren't all his and maybe the thread title should be updated?

 

The fb on PA will most likely be tainted, I've no idea if the sythe vouches will be.

 

Hello, you brought up a very good point. Only seems to have ~500 vouches on Sythe, but claims to have 8k+ which is very misleading :thinking: I don't think this is allowed.

 

One of my reasons for the PA issue being relevant is because they are using the same account for both their work for chicks and their personal sales. Given that payments are disbursed to a singular account that would mean that the money from their personal shops is being "siphoned" through the paypal/skrill of chicks who then has to redistribute it. Sounds awful suspicious to me, but you're the OP and this is only my opinion so it's your call.

 

Stopping people from using the reputation of the site they work for when selling on the side shouldn’t have an impact on anyone trading in a genuine fashion though

 

You seem to misunderstand. Chicks' PA account is used for his, and only his, sales. He does not "redistribute" any of the earnings he makes from his (own) gold sales through PA, which we essentially work as "Livechat" agents for. Nothing is "siphoned" as our own sales never have, and I presume, never will be a part of that. If you think there's something shady going on with the finances behind Chicks' PA account, I'm sure that either PlayerAuctions or Paypal are more than capable of investigating and drawing their own conclusions (which I'm actually pretty sure they already have done so in the past).

The issue which @A Broken Man has, which is being discussed in this thread, is that in our free time we also buy and sell gold, on Sythe. This means that we each have our own gold buying and selling threads. The result which occurs is that there is no way to draw a hard line between whether we use these for our own purposes, or are acting (as Richard put it) as "shell companies" for Chicks.

The issue runs deeper when you consider banning people from having their own threads if they work for a site as fair competition. Firstly it seems to be incompatible with a conceptually "free" market. Secondly, how are you able to define when it is fair to do so? If I worked for a few hours for a gold site a month as a one-off, would this be considered in the rule? Thirdly, the evidence behind it is incredibly hard to establish if the users involved are actively trying to hide it. I could deny any involvement with Chicks, use a new Discord account when working as a livechat agent for him, and still run my own threads, to the same result - except no one would be able to prove that I'm doing so. The only way you would be able to catch me, as you would in the case with the scenario of ARIBA making a new thread for each one of his workers, is if I actively encouraged to get him sales through my own threads. If you messaged me for gold and I linked you to Chicks' thread or PA listing, this would be a clear violation of the rules (as I did with @A Broken Man yesterday, was caught out, and the matter was dealt with by Charlotte. On a small side note, the reason this occurred was because I don't accept Paypal, but Chicks does through PA. It's essentially the same as if someone asked if you accepted Dutch Bank Transfer and you didn't but you knew Wortel did, you directed him towards Wortel. I agree however that because we work with each other, that this should be against the rules, and I won't be doing this again.)

 

So how is this explained?

 

I may have been misled, I'll PM you a explanation of everything I do from my end and what I understand (I think it should shed some light on the situation). However, it is still inappropriate to derail this thread into a discussion of one user's (off-site) market use. This thread is specifically about the reforms which ABM has suggested.

 

Given how things have developed I believe it's of at least some relevancy, however I will concede that point if the OP confirms with me that he doesn't believe it is at all relevant.

 

The OP does not decide what is relevant, Sythe staff do, even if they (/I) may be biased in this instance. However,

It's within my right to close this thread as it has been derailed much like HHN did with the last one, however I think @A Broken Man brings up a valid discussion and we should explore to see if an improved rule can be suggested.

Whether Chicks shares his PA account (unbeknownst to me even, apparently), his eBay account, his Paypal account, his Tinder account, or his Grindr account with anyone else is of no valid significance here to anyone. This being said, I will stress that posts after this one which actively derail the thread further will be subject to infractions as they should have been earlier on.

I'm very happy to discuss this further in PMs with you, which you can share in the Spam Forum if you wish to make it public.

 

I don't think you understand how much money Chicks makes. He averages probably 10-20 grand a DAY in daily PROFITS, not sales, profits into his own pockets- to say the size of his gold shop is decreasing would be a joke. Also, these aren't workers flipping gp for themselves, it is literally for CHICKS. We are trying to say we don't mind if these site workers are flipping gp for themselves, but they shouldn't be abusing the rule in order to essentially be advertising for one person altogether. @Shexy flips gp for himself, not double posting for his site. Its rather simple to just disallow those who abuse the rule rather than act as if its a black and white scenario where you either let them do it or not; it doesn't have to be that simple as this is clearly the ONLY case of people abusing this scenario in the first place. Putting a foot down now will prevent this from occurring on a massive scale where gold sellers like @Dieze , @Luck , @Laziz, etc. now probably can hire a Sythe moderator for minimal pay to place multiple threads up in the buying and selling section in order to advertise their own service, when in reality its not their money, but the gold resellers.

 

I am surprised and amazed to stumble across this topic as it regards something relative to a personal experience I had a while back on here, and it greatly effected my business at the time. I am amused, shocked, and agitated by the conflicting information regarding this rule, and it annoys me how some of these members are granted permission to participate (debatably) in a syndicate of gold merchants, while as a legitimate business owner I was oppressed.

Rather than rant about my experience, feel free to refer back to this: Rsgoldmarkt/KingL1993 colluding to break sythe bump rules

At the time I was running my old gold site rsgoldstock, while also administrating live chat customer support on @Kaii 's website. We shared live chat and because of this I had to close my forum topics, and a few months later my deal with Kaii collapsed, and I was still (FOR MONTHS) unable to relaunch my forum topics.

Below I have quoted some comments from different sides of the argument, and I aim to address the pros, cons, and simply what I agree/disagree with.

I think it should be a priority that this rule is addressed.

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No. Because that would be having 10 forum accounts advertising one website. It should be different if employees are promoting their domains though. On the other side of the argument, to stop a monoplogy, there should be a limit to how many employees, shareholders, contractors, and affiliates of the website can also have their own topics.

Chloe. Chloe Chloe Chloe.... Please do refer to my situation above. I can literally plagiarise your response in my own context. The funds are mine, my website is mine, the livechat was Kaii's. Any gold I sold on my site was mine, any gold delivered through the same live chat, was mine. And any funds for buying/restocking is mine.

Refering to my situation? We weren't even doing it secretly as it didn't seem to be a problem, and in short, shouldn't have been a problem. We were by no means running a monopoly on sythe. I simply outsourced my customer support to Kaii's live chat department. The rest of the business operations were indeed all my responsibility.

If this is 'perfectly normal and somehwat common', then why does the outcome of my situation with Kaii completely paradox this? As I mentioned above, the only thing tying us together was the live chat department. All other business operations were seperate and of seperate funding sources. Regardless of this, I was suppressed and threatened with punishment, which greatly effected my business at the time. People didn't trust me, some returning customers stopped returning simply due to the topic. It was unfair, and I didn't bitch and moan about it until right now. based on the nature of the shared playerauctions accounts (which by the way is basically the same thing as sharing a website, considering how much traffic PA gets), I am very eager to see this urle have more clarity.

This is a complex one, as we all know that some people may always try to find a loophole. I don't know of a way to determine who is monopolising, and who isn't. In my situation (cited above) I was transparent from the get go, and was willing to share privately the backend of my business. Not everybody would be comfortable doing this, nor should it be required.

However, that being said, in this particular case I think clear documentation to support the claims being made should be present. If for example, Chloe uses Chick's PA account, but is funding her sales, then after Player auctions disbursement (which will be going in to Chick's paypal/btc/etc), then after compensating for the PA fees, Chick should be sending Chloe her money corresponding to the Unit cost, and profit, correct? If this can not be proved in documentation to correlate with the sales records on the PA account, then they are infact operating as a syndicate.

If everything adds up, then there is no problem in my opinion, except as I mentioned above in response PA is basically the same as sharing a site, if not, more beneficial due to the amount of traffic it gets. Lets not forget that the PA account will be getting customers from PA itself, not just when Chloe, Chick, and whoever else links their customer list the profile. Therefore, in regards to this, if a customer comes from PA traffic, then who's customer is it? Chick's, Chloes', Vlad's, etc..?

I don't know much about your situation so I cannot comment too much, but it sounds like you had a similar situation to me. I am not wanting to talk about this all day in the form of a rant, but could you specify the details a little bit?

Were you an employee of divines gold site? Or were you a contractor for services only?

Let's say I am a mechanic. I work for a car garage. I fix cars 9-5, 5 days a week. I also want to sell my own service and replacement car parts on the side. But then in some twisted realm of the business world, something stops me. So then I have to choose. Do I quit working for the garage? Or do I quit my dream of building my own brand?

The inter-relationship complexity has definitely increased. As it stands for me personally. I left DDIS after Kaii and I terminated our shared live chat deal. DDIS were too slow responding to site updates, so I took the DDIS model and combined it with my intermediate chinese language skills. I approached the Chinese and struck the same deal I had with DDIS, with them.

Respecting the nature of the previous decision made against Kaii and myself in regards to forum topics, I do not bump my topics. However due to the nature of this incident as of late, I am very curious to know if I could receive a second opinion considering that I do operate my own business. I use my own funds, my own contacts lists, my own investments in branding and marketing. The only thing I share is live chat once again, due to the nature that the Chinese have very strong work ethic and are experienced in this field for over 10 years now.

To combine this response with my response to Sythe's direclty above yours; in addition to my shared live chat, I have deals in regards to payment options. I have the chinese accept Alipay for me and other payment methods I cannot host easily. This is simply for expanding my reach, and not a way of them monopolosing through me.



To conclude. I have conflicting thoughts on this entire topic. I have been able to operate personally without traffic from Sythe threads, however I do believe this has been very unfair and I have missed out on over a year of traffic now considering that the named users have been able to share Player auctions.

The inter-relationship complexity is something a lot of people overlook, and many people jump on the bandwagon to point fingers at other users, when in fact, they lack business and networking experience.

I think my analogy of the car garage above perfectly outlines the issue we have here. In the real world of business, unless a contract is agreed on prior to employment, then employers can not stop employees operating side businesses, and there isn't a bunch of butthurt teens and young adults stood outside their garage telling them they cannot operate their business.

More clarity is needed for this rule, and in my opinion exceptions just form smoke and mirrors to what actually is allowed/disallowed. This in mind I believe Player Auctions should be considered the same as sharing a live chat, as the player auctions inbox will be used.

And as mentioned above, when a player auctions member places an order, who's order is it?

It is like several users sharing a website and then saying that some orders are Person A's, some are B's, and some C's. When in the context of sythe rules, would be considered a joint venture, thus no multiple topics.

 

@Lime I worked for his gold site (delivering gold & live chat) and because I had my own gold to sell as well from services which I focused in the week (only did weekends for him) I wasn't allowed to sell it due to "them saying it could be his stock"

 

This is part of what I've been trying to say, but is now branded as "derailing", although I may not have explained it quite as eloquently. I don't see how this can be viewed as irrelevant to this specific scenario.

 

PA is really easy to get into, imo a lot easier than sythe. I got these stats with only runescape sales and I'm a bum lol kmjt's Store | PlayerAuctions

 

I think the rule as it is makes sense but it is in a situation where it can be abused, expecially if staff are allowed to approve there own thread being allowed (dont think any details on this has been said), I understand relationships between companys has gotten way more complex since the old days, and see the need for a change from the black/white rule of its not okay for workers to have threads, I think if the precident was set with the lime/kaii thing forever ago it should be followed, if it is not to be we need clarification as to why.

sharing a PA and sharing a site are pretty much the same thing, its sharing a off-sythe way to generate sales.

Althought it might not seem fair to staff I think the simplist solution is just to keep the rule as it is but don't allow staff to have there own thread if they work for someone, simply for the reason that it means staff cant abuse it (I believe most staff wouldn't and I'm sure everything with chloe, vlad and chicks was not intended to abuse the system but that is the outward appearence of it), but if the rule is people with site connections (workers or anything like a arrangement to allow extra payment methods) may have there own thread if approved by staff, as it currently is, but staff are not allowed, as even if something is done like staff must be approved by higher staff, its just too easy for people to get uspet about and point fingers, and cause general distrust of everyone involved, and the market in general.

 

Yeah I think this rule needs to be abolished or made extra strict.

Because you can’t prove Chloe or anyone is or isn’t guilty and so this leads to situations like the one we’re in now.

Some people get treated one way and other people get treated another way. And why wouldn’t they? There’s no way to determine if people are guilty of breaking the rule or not.

So just say that there is no rule or say that if you work with or associate yourself with a site, you can’t make a thread period.

The way it is now leads to unintentional corruption because depending on how you look at each situation you can say they are or aren’t guilty without any way to say for sure.

TLDR, the rule inherently lacks consistency, abolish it or make it all-encompassing.

 

Thank you for taking the time to share you thoughts in relation to this topic and citing my situation as an area of comparison. I agree in regards to clarity, it just needs making clearer, even if the 'free market' is made stricter by omitting the power to have employees have topics. I have managed to do business on sythe without my topics as a sacrifice to outsourcing the chinese live chat due to their extensive experience (rather than taking the riskier approach most make when hiring randomers from forums). This inter-relationship complexity, as Sythe has coined it, is vital to how I operate, as well as how others operate in different ways.

That being said, if the rule went towards to the other end of the spectrum, and I were to be allowed topics, then that'd be a nice bonus. However regardless of it being a benefit for me, as for the best interest of the market we would need to ensure monoplies do not form. It's a complex issue

This is so valid in my experience. I lost some returning customers as they quickly jumped on the bandwagon that I was part of some sketchy/fraudulent syndicate of gold sites.

However I think it would be unfair to deny mods a market perk, while allowing it for ordinary market users. That being said, I also think if we are to become more lenient in regards to the inter-connectness of businesses and having independent market topics/listings, then other limits would need to be put in place so users cannot monopolise through so called 'employee side businesses'

 

I stated denying it to mods wouldnt be fair but seems the easiest way to clear up things, if they do open it up what limits would you think of to stop people monopolising with "employee side buisnesses"? I was trying to thing and if each site could have a maximum amount of threads for people with relation but that would just be inviting abuse, I cant really think of a easy way this could be opened up and policed.

I'd like your take on this as a site owner, what would your stance be if sites had to list there workers sythe accounts in there thread just for the sake of transparency if nothing else (I know your outsource to the chinese now but in relation to those whos workers do have sythe and thus this situation is relevant)